


Physical Education

by Minnow_53



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25258159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minnow_53/pseuds/Minnow_53
Summary: Sirius has a crush on Remus; James has fixed his two friends up with a double date for Valentine's Day.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Physical Education

**Author's Note:**

> First published on LiveJournal 3/4/05. Thanks to Asterie for the beta.

1.

_This is intended as a helpful guide for boys who fancy other boys.. (Introduction to the wizarding edition of Boys At School: The Psychology of Crushes, by Dr. G. Solomon.)_

Sirius Black knew just about everything. 

He knew exactly what minor hexes would most annoy Snivellus Snape: the itching hex, and the one that made you sneeze tadpoles. He knew how to become a dog. He knew, from his long sessions in the Muggle Studies section of the library, that it was perfectly normal for boys at boarding school to have crushes on other boys. He could have told you all about phases and displacement, and discussed calmly why he wasn’t worried about his childish obsession with Remus Lupin. ‘I’ll grow out of it in a couple of years,’ he would have said serenely.

Of course, he knew plenty of other things too, like how much Gillyweed was needed in an Asthma Relief Potion, what a niffler liked for breakfast, how long the average life-line ought to be and the exact angle of the wand in a Heating Charm. He could also work out complex Arithmancy problems, though he’d only taken the subject for one term. He even knew how to arrange his hair so it wasn’t too long or too short and fell over his eyes exactly as he wanted it to.

The one thing Sirius Black didn’t know anything about was girls. Which was amazing, considering that he was the best-looking boy in Sixth Year, and had virtually the entire female population of the school swooning at his feet.

The reason for this was quite simple. Sirius’s female relatives were not exactly the sort of role models that would give one confidence in the sex as a whole. His mother was mad, most of his girl cousins were vain and unpleasant, and generally he had come to think of women as people to steer clear of.

Of course, Sirius knew enough to understand and face the problem. He could quote all the major wizarding treatises on sexual psychology. ‘Once I’ve worked through my feelings about my family, I’ll be able to see girls in a more detached, flattering light,’ he told Remus once, when they were discussing why Sirius simply didn’t feel like dating all the pretty girls who were dying to go out with him. 

As Dr. Solomon said: _Often, members of one’s own sex are far less threatening, and therefore more likely to seem desirable._

2.

_Maybe the other boy has a crush on you too! Look out for dilated pupils, avoidance of your eyes, blushing…_

Obviously, he never mentioned to Remus that he had a crush on him. He often checked, though, to see if he could discern any telltale signs that Remus felt the same way about him. So far, he hadn’t really been able to tell. 

It didn’t seem awfully likely. For a start, Remus was Experienced, because he knew a bit more about girls than Sirius did; but then Remus’s mother was quite nice, if not awfully bright, and his girl cousins were charming. Sirius might even have gone out with one of the girl cousins if they hadn’t all been Squibs, who didn’t attend wizarding school.

Mind you, Remus didn’t know that much, and sometimes seemed to have as little interest in girls as Sirius did, though for very different reasons.

Sirius’s best friend, James Potter, wasn’t impressed with all Sirius’s talk of Muggle neuroses and phases. He wasn’t impressed with Remus’s speeches about being a werewolf either. In fact, he got so fed up with hearing what he called ‘Moony and Padfoot’s lame excuses’ that he decided to fix his two friends up with a double date for Valentine’s Day.

It wasn’t too hard: though Lily Evans spurned James, a lot of girls liked him, and those girls had friends, who of course lusted after Sirius Black. A few of them found Remus sweet and helpless and adorable and thought they’d like to look after him and feed him a few square meals. And some of these girls were friends with each other. So James didn’t have too many problems fixing his best mates up with two Ravenclaws from Fifth Year, both very pretty. 

‘Natasha likes Sirius, and Irina likes Remus,’ James explained patiently to his friends. ‘Got that? Natasha’s the one with blue eyes.’

‘Yeah, fine,’ Sirius said dismissively. ‘But, Prongs, I really have better things to do than go out with girls.’

‘Yeah, wanking in the loo,’ said James rudely. ‘High time you got at least within sniffing distance of the real thing.’

Sirius and Remus both shuddered and said, ‘Eww,’ and James gave up on them and went off to Quidditch practice, tailed by Peter, who knew more about girls than the rest of them put together, because he had four sisters.

Once James had gone, Sirius took Remus’s arm – _You must avoid building up inhibitions by being afraid to touch other boys, whether or not you have a crush on them_ – and dragged him up to the dorm. ‘Those girls,’ he started. ‘We’ll be expected to, you know.’

Remus looked at him blankly.

‘C’mon, Remus, help me out here. You went on a date with that other Ravenclaw, didn’t you? The fat one.’

‘She’s not fat,’ said Remus indignantly. ‘It’s just her robes are a bit small.’

‘Whatever. But you must have done something. Like, well, kissing her.’

Remus looked blank. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because,’ said Sirius, who always knew the theory of these things, ‘that’s what you do to girls.’

‘I let her copy my essay,’ Remus said. ‘Is that okay?’

‘If a Ravenclaw copies your essay, Moony, she has a real problem. No. Didn’t you hold her hand or anything?’

‘I lent her my quill.’

Sirius snorted. ‘Honestly, Moony, you’re hopeless.’

‘Well, so are you.’

Dr. Solomon often implored hormonal boys on the verge of imploding to _try not to argue with any boys you really like, especially over stupid things like girls._ So Sirius merely gave Remus’s hand a friendly squeeze, and said, ‘We should practise. You know. Otherwise, those girls will get back to their friends, and it’ll get back to Prongs and he’ll be furious with us.’

‘Practise what?’

‘Kissing and stuff. What I said. Holding hands.’ And, noticing that he hadn’t taken his hand away from Remus’s after the friendly squeeze, he added, ‘Look, we’re practically holding hands now. If you just take my hand, like that – that’s right. Great. Now if one of the girls wants to hold hands we’ll know what to do.’

Remus looked down at their clasped hands, his brow furrowed. Sirius didn’t quite sigh: great though his crush on Moony was, he didn’t expect Moony to have a crush back on him, and so the touching thing mightn’t seem so natural to him as it did to someone like Sirius who’d read all the books. 

‘Oh,’ Remus said. ‘Is that it?’

‘What d’you mean, is that it? Don’t you think it might feel nice, holding hands with a girl?’

‘I suppose,’ said Remus dubiously, extricating his hand. ‘Listen, Sirius, I thought it might be fun to go and watch Prongs playing today, so I really have to get on.’

Sirius caught him by the sleeve of his robe. ‘Oi, not so fast. That date is tomorrow, and we don’t want those girls to laugh at us.’

Remus put on what Sirius thought of as his long-suffering face. Although Sirius had a crush on Remus and found him gorgeous and amazing and everything else, he did get annoyed when Remus looked put upon. Nevertheless, he didn’t let go of his sleeve.

‘What, then?’

‘Kissing. They’ll expect us to kiss them.’

‘Well, we don’t have to kiss them if we don’t want to.’

Sirius sighed again. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Remus? If we don’t kiss them, it’ll be all round the school that, that – ’

Remus looked at him expectantly.

‘—that we didn’t. Okay?’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ Remus said, but at least he didn’t seem about to run off.

‘I just thought it might be a good idea if we practised doing it with each other,’ Sirius blurted out. Remus may not return his feelings, but all the same, he thought it would be quite natural for two friends to give it a go. It was only for research, after all. 

‘You mean we kiss each other? On the lips?’

Sirius suppressed a sigh. ‘Moony, it doesn’t mean we’re actually doing anything. We haven’t got girls to practise on yet so we’ll practise on each other. Then we can kiss them and tell James and he’ll be happy we’ve done it.’

‘We can practise on the girls tomorrow,’ Remus said. He looked a bit flushed and upset, Sirius thought, and resolved to leave a copy of _Boys At School_ lying about the dorm for Remus to find, rather than keeping it stuffed well under his mattress. If nothing else, it was quite a turn on.

‘Remus.’

‘Oh, all right.’

3.

_Boys at boarding schools with crushes on each other often kiss each other, as a natural expression of misplaced affection._

Sirius looked round the dorm, suddenly a bit worried that one of their friends might be lurking there unseen. ‘I’ll just put on a locking spell, okay? We don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.’

‘I thought you said Prongs would want you to practise.’

‘Er…not exactly. And perhaps not with you.’

Remus perked up. ‘So if he finds out, he’ll be mad with both of us?’

‘And cancel the date? Not bloody likely. Don’t even think about telling him, mate. ‘

‘Like I would!’ said Remus. ‘What do we do, then?’

‘Well,’ said Sirius, who thought about abstracts a lot, and had studied the theory and mechanics of kissing, ‘first, you put your arms round me. And I put my arms round you, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Remus a bit faintly. Sirius wasn’t quite sure whether this was because he was resigned or cross. The theory of Remus wasn’t always clear-cut.

They put their arms around each other. ‘You’re meant to relax a bit, not hold me at arm’s length,’ Sirius said. ‘Honestly, the problem with a magic education is that none of you know the slightest thing about psychology. It’s quite natural to touch your mates.’

Remus looked suspiciously as if he might be about to burst into a nervous fit of giggles, but Sirius glared at him and he refrained. 

After a bit of adjusting Remus’s hands and the angle he was standing at, Sirius decided they’d got it right. He privately thought, because of his healthy, natural crush, that they were just the perfect relative heights for this, because Remus was a fraction shorter and could make quite a convincing girl, though of course he was far taller than most girls. Sirius knew enough psychology not to say this aloud, because Remus could pack a mean punch, and he didn’t fancy going on this date with a black eye.

‘Right, now tilt your head a bit…yes, that’s right.’

Remus glared at him balefully, and Sirius hastily added, ‘And close your eyes. You’re putting me off.’

‘Only if you close yours.’

‘Remus, for heaven’s sake!’ Sirius obediently closed his eyes, then opened them again once he was sure Remus couldn’t see him, mainly so he could be certain of what he was doing. ‘Just hold still. Don’t move, no matter what.’

Remus was shaking, and those nervous giggles of his seemed to be coming back to the surface, so Sirius hastily put his mouth over Remus’s before he started laughing helplessly. Once Remus got started it was quite hard to stop him.

He held his mouth on Remus’s for as long as seemed appropriate. He figured thirty seconds should do it. 

The experience wasn’t transcendental, though he assumed it might be better, or certainly different, with a girl. Remus was absolutely immobile, and his lips though soft and full had a certain stubborn set to them that wasn’t really conducive to exploration. 

Sirius took his mouth away and said, ‘You can open your eyes now.’

‘So?’ Remus looked at him a bit less balefully, but not exactly with doe eyes. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

‘I think…don’t mean to be rude, Moony, but if you kiss a girl you’re going to have to, well, respond a bit more. You don’t just stand there with your mouth tightly shut.’

‘Yes, but you’re doing all the kissing. It’s not like I’m learning anything. You’re just sort of clamping down on me, and that’s it. If I were a girl, I’d be disappointed.’

Sirius pondered for a moment. ‘It should be more mutual perhaps. But that includes you not just keeping your lips all pressed together angrily like that.’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘Then don’t act it. Come on, let’s have another go.’

‘Just don’t be so dominant, okay? I want to do something too.’

‘Okay. Come on, Moony, you have to put your arms round me. And tell you what, if you tried opening your mouth a bit it might help.’

Remus glowered at him, and Sirius sighed and put his arms round his friend again. He thought that this might be quite a good cure for a crush, actually, having the object of desire, or rather, obsession, scowling at you as you held him close. Though Moony’s scowl was rather sweet, and he did have beautiful eyes. Sirius forgot the kissing thing for a minute and hugged Remus instead, because that was a simple, perfectly manly thing to do to a mate, as long as the mate didn’t then try to shove you away.

‘Sirius. I thought we were practising kissing, and I’m just standing here like a lemon with my eyes closed and my mouth open and all you can do is crush me, and you’ve got my robes all creased.’

‘They were already creased. Okay, close your eyes again.’

That time it was definitely better. Once Remus’s mouth wasn’t determinedly closed, it actually felt quite nice. Sirius thought that he would definitely be able to kiss a girl quite well if she opened her mouth like Remus did and he could sort of suck on her tongue, which Remus seemed to like, because he did it right back, not balefully, but as if he too were really concentrating on getting this thing right.

The second attempt took a lot longer than thirty seconds, Sirius reckoned. He would have estimated around five minutes, probably a fair bit longer. That was okay with someone you had a crush on, who knew you and wouldn’t object, with any luck, though he thought with a girl you might go a bit easier on the tongues and just gently lick her lips, which also seemed to feel quite good.

‘Okay, that wasn’t bad,’ he said, when they finally broke away. He noted that Remus didn’t wipe his mouth this time. ‘But I think we shouldn’t do it for so long with a girl.’ 

Remus looked a bit dazed, and his hair was tousled. Sirius leaned across and smoothed it out of his eyes. _Touching the object of affection intimately is more acceptable if the object of affection wants to be touched_ , he remembered very belatedly, though of course that wasn’t the universal opinion. ‘Intimately’ was the key word here. Anyway, Remus didn’t seem to mind, though he obviously wasn’t quite with it. 

He would have liked nothing more than to consult his _Boys At School_. Surely looking dazed meant that Remus at least noticed him? Had noticed they were kissing, though of course it was only for practice? Sometimes, it was hard to tell with Remus, who was so elusive that you often had to play Twenty Questions to pin him down on anything.

‘Earth to Moony,’ he said waving his hand in front of Remus’s eyes. Remus seemed to find this quite funny, because he finally broke out into the laughter that had been threatening for so long.

Sirius patiently sat it out. He didn’t even ask, ‘What’s the joke?’ He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to know the answer.

‘Sorry,’ Remus said at last. ‘Have we finished practising yet?’

‘We could have one more go. If you don’t mind. But this time, let’s make it a bit shorter. Like we’re really kissing real girls.’

Remus rolled his eyes again. ‘Did you ever think they mightn’t want to kiss us on a first date?’

‘Remus. They will. They have to.’

Sirius borrowed Remus’s watch to set an alarm. ‘I think exactly one minute. What d’you say?’

Remus shrugged. ‘It seems a long time.’ 

Sirius didn’t want to frighten him off the dress rehearsal by mentioning that their second go had lasted considerably longer. ‘It won’t seem like it when you’re actually kissing a girl, believe me.’

They were just getting going properly again, Sirius mused, when the bloody alarm went. Remus jumped away from him as if it had been a gunshot. Sirius remembered that if one had a crush on another boy, it was important not to let him suspect anything, unless he was showing definite signs of returning your feelings. _Play it cool; don’t allow yourself to get hurt._ ‘Better unlock that door now, Prongs and Pete will be along any second,’ he remarked lightly.

‘Hey, Padfoot,’ said Remus, who was looking a lot happier now the door was open and the session over, ‘what happens if we want to sleep with them?’

Sirius thought he was joking, but he couldn't be sure. He wanted the object of his lust – kissing someone you had a crush on obviously had an effect – to think he was simply being casual. ‘Well, we can’t really practise that, can we?’ he said in what was meant to be a bantering tone.

He thought Remus looked disappointed for a second, but he did realise that was wishful thinking. He took the opportunity to give him another very brief hug, though. 

Later, he looked up the well-thumbed chapter on _Sex with other Boys At School_. It was a bit more advanced than _Crushes_ , but he read it frequently anyway. He liked to fondly imagine Remus reading it too, taking in specially sections with titles like _Mutual Masturbation for Fun and Profit_ and the wizarding edition addendum on _Cleaning and Silencing Spells_. He doubted if that was what Remus had in mind, anyway. Though if he ever saw the faintest sign of the famous dilated pupils he might ask.

4.

 _Sleeping with other boys is a perfectly ordinary learning experience…that should be considered educational as well as pleasurable_.

Valentine’s Day dawned bright and sunny. Sirius thought it would be a good idea to remind Remus from the outset that they were going to be in Hogsmeade later with two girls, so accordingly he pulled back Remus’s curtains and climbed into bed with him. You had to go to those lengths to wake Remus up, so there was nothing perverted about it. Anyway, in _Boys At School_ , the boys with crushes seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time rolling round on or in bed with the boys they liked, and sometimes with other boys whom they liked less but who were willing to experiment. 

Sunny or not, it was pretty cold, so Sirius shivered and pulled Remus’s covers over him, which meant pulling them away from Remus, which meant Remus half woke and was cross and tried to pull them back, then gave up and burrowed into Sirius instead. Though this certainly constituted a pleasurable experience for someone with a crush, Sirius was a bit alarmed that Remus would wake fully and be angry with him, even jinx him before the date so he ended up all pimply or worse: ‘worse’ being huge boils and ganglions.

So he climbed out of Remus’s bed again, rearranged the sheets and blankets so they were tucked round the sleeping or pretending to sleep boy, then made his entrance again rather more noisily, shaking Remus and shouting, ‘Oi, Moony, get up.’

‘Give me three good reasons,’ Remus mumbled into his pillow. He enjoyed games like that, so Sirius obliged. 

‘One, it’s Valentine’s Day.’

‘Then I’m bloody going back to sleep.’

‘No, no, we have a date. With two girls. And we practised kissing. Remember?’

‘Right.’ Remus sat up. ‘Were you in my bed just now?’

‘Uh, yes. For a minute. To try and wake you up.’

‘Ah,’ said Remus, shaking his hair out of his eyes. ‘I thought you’d decided to practise the sleeping with thing too.’

‘No. Lucky it isn’t a full moon, right? Not quite, anyway.’

‘Sirius, you’re babbling,’ James called across from his bed. ‘Shut up.’

Remus gave Sirius what looked like a sympathetic smile. Sirius leaned a bit closer, to check out his pupils. They were quite big, but Sirius wasn’t sure at what point that became dilated. And he may just have been happy to see James dancing around with excitement because he’d owled Lily an enchanted valentine with explosions of streamers and confetti and tiny silver horseshoes, which surely no girl on earth could resist. He couldn’t wait to get down to breakfast and watch her receive it. 

‘D’you think you should really have _signed_ it, Prongs?’ Peter was asking anxiously as they slammed the door and went downstairs.

‘So much for anonymity,’ Sirius sighed. ‘Prongs is a total idiot.’ He sat down on Remus’s bed and sneaked another look at his pupils. ‘Hey, Moony, did you send what’s her face a valentine?’

‘Irina,’ Remus supplied. ‘No. I thought the date was enough. Did you send one?’

‘No. Remus, d’you reckon we should give that kissing thing one more go?’

‘In a different position, you mean?’ Remus asked. ‘Seeing as I’m not getting out of bed yet.’

Sirius pondered yet again the wise words of Dr. Solomon. _It is absolutely normal for healthy boys to want to shag each other senseless_. Well, he didn’t put it quite like that, of course. For a moment, he wondered whether Remus actually wanted to do this natural, healthy stuff with him, or whether he really didn’t have a clue, or whether he was taking the piss.

He thought, not for the first time, that really this crush was a nuisance, when all was said and done. In the past, he’d always known what Remus was thinking and feeling, when he was joking, when he was serious; just as he always knew with Prongs and Wormtail. Now, he was so busy interpreting every word that he didn’t have a clue what Remus meant any more. Might as well have had a crush on some girl, in fact. 

‘Well, what d’you think?’ said Sirius, who knew enough to deflect awkward questions right back.

‘It could be useful. If one of them faints and you have to do the kiss of death or something.’

‘I think it’s the kiss of life, Moony.’

‘Whatever. Anyway, if I lie down on my back and you can sort of lean over me.’

Sirius knelt by the bed. He decided he’d better do another locking spell, as James would be returning any second, with streamers and confetti and tiny silver horseshoes scattered in his hair, looking hurt and close to tears and vowing off women forever, and with Peter whimpering with distress in his wake.

He tried to check Remus’s state of dilation, but he had obediently closed his eyes: Remus wasn’t a prefect for nothing. He was good at remembering and following instructions.

‘D’you think you’d kiss someone for longer lying down, or should I set the alarm for a minute?’ Sirius asked.

‘Two minutes,’ Remus said, his eyes still closed, his mouth slightly open.

This time, Sirius felt extremely cheated when the alarm went. There was something about kissing someone lying down, especially when they had, overnight it seemed, learned a couple more things to do with their tongues, and you had a crush on them. And, as Dr. Solomon never forgot to remind his overwrought readers, _The more you learn what pleases other boys, the better you’ll know how to satisfy girls later_. The good doctor didn’t specify how you should handle the differences in anatomy, but no doubt that was also something that arose naturally and healthily.

‘Right,’ Sirius said heartily, ‘we’re meeting the girls in the Entrance Hall at eleven, aren’t we? Then down to Hogsmeade, a vatful of Butterbeer, a few kisses…'

‘You’ll be sorry we didn’t practise the sleeping with,’ said Remus darkly.

Sirius was about to retort that perhaps they should do that, then, when there was a banging on the door. He took out his wand and hastily unlocked it, and prepared to spend the next half hour comforting poor Prongs.

In fact, it took nearer an hour, and by the time James had managed to beat down his two best friends’ entreaties that he should replace one of them on the double date, they were late. Remus barely had time to struggle into his clean pair of jeans before it was time to go.

5.

_A crush…can express itself in many ways. Some boys may find their bodies doing embarrassing things in the presence of the object of the crush, or ‘crushee’._

‘Is there really such a word as ‘crushee’?’ Sirius idly asked Remus, as they waited in the Entrance Hall for their dates, who were even later than they were.

‘Never heard it,’ said Remus. ‘You mean like the object of a crush?’

Sirius was impressed. It was sometimes hard to remember that Remus was rather clever; well, it was when one had a crush on him, and felt that a lot of what he said was quite stupid, simply because he didn’t know about the psychology of boys at school. And how could he know, if Sirius didn’t tell him?

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘It’s a silly word,’ Remus pronounced. He kicked at the doorsill with the toe of his school shoes, which didn’t look quite right with jeans and a teeshirt, but were the only shoes he could find in his haste to get ready.

Sirius thought he looked delectable out of robes. He didn’t even mind the awful shoes, because he could imagine Remus’s naked feet, which were very nice feet, feet that a fetishist might enjoy caressing. He wasn’t sure if woman foot fetishists existed, and Dr. Solomon didn’t deal with fetishes, because they were abnormal.

There was a twitter of voices, bright dresses, shiny hair, and the girls were with them. Natasha with the blue eyes looked decidedly smug as she tucked her arm into Sirius’s. Sirius understood that the girls had strategically waited for the maximum influx of pupils into the Entrance Hall to go to Hogsmeade, so that Natasha could be seen with him by as many of her friends as possible, and they could duly be impressed. He was pleased to see that Irina was also holding Remus’s arm and beaming. It made him happy that she understood that Remus was beautiful and special and worth showing off to the other girls.

All the same, he didn’t like seeing her standing quite so close to Remus, especially as Remus was giving her that sweet, tentative smile he liked so much.

‘Right, off we go,’ he barked, attempting to shepherd Remus a little over to the right and out of the door so that the girls would let go of them for a minute.

The girls clung on, though, as they made their way across the lawn to the school gates. The whole of the middle and upper school seemed to be going to Hogsmeade this Valentine’s Day – except poor James, and loyal Peter who had stayed behind to console him. Even the proud peacocks that normally patrolled the grounds had fled to the safer confines of the Forbidden Forest to avoid the throngs.

Sirius noted Lily with her best friend, Zoe, but without any boy in tow. At least he’d be able to tell Prongs there wasn’t anyone else.

He wasn’t surprised that once they got to the village many of the couples made their way to one of the two teashops, Madam Puddifoot’s being, as always, the most popular. Remus and Sirius had already agreed that they were not going to darken the door of that place, so they duly steered the two girls towards the Three Broomsticks, as planned. Sirius would rather have liked to try the Nag’s Head, with its dubious reputation, but it wasn’t perhaps a good idea to do it on Valentine’s Day with girls in tow.

Irina and Natasha weren’t at all happy. None of the other couples or foursomes were going to the Three Broomsticks. They weren’t very pleased that nobody would see them with their desirable dates, except perhaps a few of the professors who frequented the pub.

‘It’s going to be far more intimate in the Broomsticks today,’ Sirius assured the still-clutching Natasha, as he steered her firmly through the door.

By going at once to get in a jug of Butterbeer, he managed to work it so that he was sitting next to Remus, with the girls facing them.

There was no doubt that the girls were pretty, and obviously clever too, seeing they were Ravenclaws. Remus had somehow got involved in a long conversation about Potions. He seemed to be fixated by lessons when he met up with a Ravenclaw. The girls both seemed enchanted by him, though, as well they may be.

6.

_Jealousy…is an ugly emotion, but one which the boy with a crush will often experience._

‘Why would I be jealous?’ Sirius muttered under his breath. ‘Just because he’s talking to two pretty girls and enjoying it?’

‘What I never understand,’ Remus was saying earnestly, taking a large gulp of Butterbeer, ‘is how the order of the ingredients can make any difference.’

‘That’s because you’re lousy at Potions,’ Sirius interjected, nudging his friend.

‘Oh, I’m sure he isn’t!’ cried Irina, indignant. She fluttered her overly long, silly, girly eyelashes at Remus.

‘Oh, I am,’ beamed Remus. 

‘You don’t have to be,’ Natasha said. ‘It’s just a matter of thinking it through. Are you good at other lessons?’

‘He’s brilliant at Defence,’ Sirius said. ‘And Charms.’

‘I’m not a patch on you at Charms!’ objected Remus. ‘And you’re way best at Transfiguration.’

‘Well, Prongs is pretty good too,’ conceded Sirius.

‘What are your best subjects?’ Remus asked the girls. Sirius secretly thought that if he continued along this track, the girls would think he was really weird or something. Schoolwork, for heaven’s sake! He’d have talked about Quidditch or the weather or how they’d got Snivellus stuck to his cauldron. Unless talking about lessons was a wonderful device to hook girls, and he could suggest it to Prongs for use with Lily.

The girls didn’t seem bored or offended, though. ‘Natasha’s great at Charms too,’ Irina said, batting those bloody eyelashes at Sirius this time.

‘And what about you?’ Remus asked.

‘Potions, I’m afraid,’ Irina said, looking fetchingly down at the table, so her stupid, impossibly glossy hair – must be some idiot spell, Sirius thought – fell almost as fetchingly over her face as Sirius’s own hair fell over his forehead. ‘Maybe I can help you sometime…Remus.’ She actually blushed as she said his first name.

‘Yeah, like some ickle Year Five is going to be better than a Sixth Year!’ thought Sirius, than took the thought back, because she probably was.

‘That would be great!’ Remus said. He was definitely taking the enthusiasm too far. ‘But aren’t you really busy with OWL mocks at the moment?’

‘Tell me about it!’ said Natasha dramatically, her vivid blue gaze sweeping round to encompass Sirius firmly in its orbit. ‘I don’t know how you two ever got through them. Did you do well, Black?’

A Gryffindor would have come straight out with the ‘Sirius’. Obviously, Irina was bolder, or else Remus was more approachable. ‘Do call me Sirius,’ he said politely nonetheless, as manners came naturally to the Blacks. He often wondered whether they apologised in advance for any inconvenience just before casting an Avada Kedavra. ‘Oh, right, OWLs. Yeah, I did okay.’

‘He got all Os,’ Remus supplied, looking fondly (or so Sirius hoped) at his friend. As Dr. Solomon often pointed out, though, _one must not mistake brotherly fondness for any deeper emotion._ Mind you, crushes on friends weren’t quite as common as crushes on strangers, so the doctor didn’t go into that one too deeply.

Sirius looked fondly back at Remus, and their eyes locked. Yeah, the pupils were definitely dilated, though that was possibly because he’d been gazing at Irina. Well, not exactly gazing, perhaps. Not the way he was gazing at Sirius now.

Though of course everyone knew that Remus found academic success fascinating, and it was Sirius’s many Os that were making his lips turn up in a slight smile as he and Sirius stared into each other’s eyes. The pupils did seem to be dilating even more, mind you.

Irina cleared her throat, rather pointedly, Sirius felt. ‘How did you do, then, Remus?’ she asked.

Sirius tensed a bit, and so did Remus. He reached under the table and pressed Remus’s hand, just to show his solidarity, the way he had in the dorm the day before. Remus was a good liar, but not that good. And he never lied if asked a direct question. 

Remus pressed his hand back. ‘Uh, okay. I mean, I got mainly Os. But not in Potions. And Herbology, well, the practical. It went a bit wrong.’ He looked up at Sirius pleadingly.

Sirius took over the story, as Remus liked him to at this point. ‘Yeah, it was really bad luck. Lupin’s Magna Flower wouldn’t open. So he couldn’t do the experiment. And he did try telling Professor Morgan, but she just waved him away and said it was an exam and he had to get on with it. So it wasn’t his fault.’

‘Why are you two holding hands?’ Natasha asked.

There was an awkward silence as they pulled away hastily from each other. ‘Ah, it’s, just, habit,’ Sirius stammered. ‘Y’know, mates. We all hold hands with each other. You want to see Pettigrew and Potter. Well, we could do with some more Butterbeer, I think. Come and help me carry the jug, Lupin.’

At the bar they stared at each other, aghast. 

‘It’s not a big deal, honestly,’ Remus said. Sirius got the distinct impression that he was actually making an effort not to press Sirius's hand again, just in solidarity.

‘Yeah. I mean, they hardly noticed, did they?’

‘Except Natasha commented on it,’ Remus pointed out.

‘I s’pose. Honestly, girls, they go loony at the slightest little thing.’

This time, Remus did pat his hand, if only for a second. ‘Let’s not worry about it,’ he said, and Sirius was reassured. Or he would have been if he hadn’t been registering that Remus had _touched_ him, _deliberately_ , which agitated him considerably.

7\. 

_There may well come a moment…when the object of the crush, or crushee, shows reciprocal feelings, or seems to. This is absolutely natural, as is acting on those feelings._

Sirius’s heart seemed to be beating at twice its normal rate as he and Remus sat down again. He let Remus carry the jug this time, so it wouldn’t look contrived that they’d both slipped away from the table and conferred urgently.

Remus turned brightly to the girls again, smiling widely. ‘What a Gryffindor,’ Sirius thought admiringly. Words were beyond him at the moment.

‘So, Irina, where do you live?’

‘London,’ Irina replied, still a bit shaken – the girls had also been having an urgent, whispered conversation while the boys were at the bar. ‘How about you?’

‘Southampton,’ Remus said. ‘It’s a real dump. No nightlife, no nothing. The place is totally dead.’

‘Well, I live quite near here,’ Natasha piped in, relief all over her very, very pretty face. She didn’t look at Sirius. ‘Edinburgh.’

‘You don’t have a Scottish accent,’ Remus said. 

‘No, we were in Bromley till a couple of years ago. My parents wanted to be near the school, though. My mother’s a Muggle, and she worries a bit. You know, the magic and so on.’

Not a pureblood! Sirius sagged into his seat with relief. He couldn’t have gone out with her for very long anyway. However at loggerheads he was with his family, their values were so deeply engrained that he doubted he’d ever get rid of them. Sure, Remus wasn’t a pureblood, but a crush wasn’t a lifelong commitment. Far from it. _The very nature of the crush is to be impermanent…just because schoolboys may spend two years experimenting sexually with each other, maybe even enjoying those experiments, when they leave school and enter the world of girls and women the transient feelings for their own sex will soon fade._

‘I live in London too,’ Sirius contributed, gulping down his Butterbeer and pouring another. He wasn’t being rude: the girls and Remus had barely touched their fresh glasses.

The girls glanced at each other again. It was definitely an assessing glance, a communication that spoke volumes, as like one they both got up.

‘What have we done now?’ Sirius wondered, confused. ‘Ah…where are you going, girls?’ To the loo, probably, he decided.

‘We remembered we have some homework to finish,’ Natasha said. She looked straight at Sirius this time, and didn’t blush or flutter her eyelids. Her crush, or infatuation, or whatever, had definitely been nipped in the bud.

Irina looked slightly more regretful. ‘Yeah. Care of Magical Creatures. See you round, Remus.’

‘See you.’

The girls left, and the pub did seem suddenly a bit more austere, less bright without their presence. Though, Sirius felt, Rosmerta was worth twenty of those silly, giggling girls. Not that they’d giggled. They looked rather upset, in fact.

‘What’s up with them?’ Sirius asked.

‘Well, you’re sitting really close to me,’ Remus said, blushing a bit in his turn. ‘You know, after the hand thing, they might, uh, think…’

Sirius realised, very belatedly, that after coming back to the table with the jug he must have moved his chair very much nearer to Remus’s. In fact, their legs were touching, but somehow it felt so right – what Dr. S would call _a natural expression of adolescent feeling_ – that he hadn’t really noticed. Oh, he certainly noticed now, and it was having an appalling effect on him, but as the girls had gone he didn’t really care.

‘I think that went quite well, don’t you?’ he prattled. 

‘Terribly,’ Remus said gravely. ‘We didn’t even get to practise our kissing on them.’ 

He didn’t move away, Sirius noticed, so he took the plunge. ‘Well, perhaps we’d better practise a bit more, then. For, for next time. Because Prongs is bound to send us on another double date.’

‘Could do,’ Remus said. ‘But not here,’ he added hastily. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the dorm. Prongs is bound to have got over it and come to do some Lily stalking in Hogsmeade.’

‘Fine.’ Sirius scraped back his chair and they left.

The streets of Hogsmeade were still crowded with couples, happy boys and girls enjoying Valentine’s Day. The sun poured down its blessing, turning the shop windows to gold. Sirius flung his arm round Remus’s shoulder. _You may decide to say to hell with it, be spontaneous, give the other boy some encouragement to open up and admit he feels the same way about you,_ the good doctor reflected right near the beginning of Chapter Five.

Remus glanced up at him. His pupils were quite definitely as dilated as they could possibly have got without making medical or ophthalmologic history.

‘I keep telling you. We should practise the sleeping with thing as well. Because I thought I was in with a chance there. Irina really liked me.’

Sirius tightened his grip on Remus’s shoulder. As expected, James and Peter were walking towards them down the High Street, James now recovered and obviously on the determined lookout, just as Sirius had hoped.

‘Yeah. Tell you what, we could go and do that right now,’ Sirius said.

They fought their way back through the crowded village to the castle. Somewhere between the woods and Hogwarts grounds, Remus flung his arm round Sirius’s shoulder in his turn, so by the time they got to the deserted common room, it was just a tiny step to putting their arms round each other, as they had the day before: only today it wasn’t the dress rehearsal, but seemed to be the real thing. In fact, they didn’t even make it to the dorm that time.

 _Sometimes, you have to give in to the inevitable_ , as Dr. Solomon often reminded his readers.

**End**


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